Thaumatropes for Valentine’s Day and Beyond

Do you know what a thaumatrope is? You probably do even if you aren’t familiar with the word. It’s a particular kind of optical illusion where an image is printed on each side of a disk and when you spin it, it looks like the two images become one.

Maybe you’ve seen this with a bird and a cage, which is shown in this video from Mr Henry’s Vids.

OWL Learning Channel has a video and printable templates you can use to make your own thaumatropes, including a spider and a web, a duck and a pond, some math problems and the word boat broken into two pieces (which is actually pretty cool).

These sorts of toys work because of what’s know as persistence of memory. The brain continues to see an object briefly even after it is no longer visible. Because of this, when you flip the images quickly your brain combines them.

If you want to see a Valentine’s Day themed version, check out this one from Team Cartwright. It has a heart on one side and the words Happy Valentine’s Day on the other, so when you spin it, it looks like the words are inside the heart. Babble Dabble Do has a similar project with a heart and an arrow, which is meant to be a gift tag, or you can just play with it.

This is a fun, easy and low-prep STEM activity to do in the classroom around Valentine’s Day, or it’s a fun one you can do with kids at home.

Once your kids understand the concept, they may want to play with making their own, which they can do with two different drawings, or like this example they can fill a heart with a different sentiment. Or they may just want to play with other printable thaumatropes,

[Photo: Team Cartwright.]

This time of year is a great time for pulling out all the apple and pumpkin themed worksheets to add a little seasonal fun to your learning. Let’s take a look at some fun pumpkin themed worksheets for the classroom or homeschool.

If you want some pumpkin printables that are actually about pumpkins, check out the pumpkin life cycle worksheets from 24 Hour Family that include parts of a pumpkin, life cycle, vocabulary, shape and counting activities. Rock Your Homeschool also has a cute printable and foldable life cycle worksheet for the life cycle of a pumpkin that kids can color and put together.

Inspire the Mom has ideas for a pumpkin unit study as well as printables (free with email signup) that include parts of the pumpkin, letter recognition, lesson plans and more. The blog post also includes more ideas for things like pretend play and centers, as well as books and videos with a pumpkin theme you can include in your study.

Do some pumpkin themed color by number with these printable coloring pages from The Artisan Life. Or try your hand at pumpkin I-spy with this printable from The Best Ideas for Kids.

Work on shape recognition and matching with this color, cut and paste activity from Free 4 Classrooms. And get some cutting practice with a pumpkin twist with these worksheets from Simple Everyday Mom.

These last two have a bunch of different fall themed worksheets to choose from, some of which include pumpkins. Willa Bean and Co. has a pumpkin themed alphabet set that includes pumpkins with the letters inside them and sets of upper and lower case letters on seeds you can use for matching.

And Worksheeto has a bunch of fall themed phonics worksheets, including pumpkin sight words with fall themed words and pumpkin letter matching.

For more pumpkin learning fun, see our pumpkin printables for kids and pumpkin STEM activities lists.

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